


Never burning dinner

by Bichwhwifi



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU Meeting, Break Up, Dinner, F/F, F/M, Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9826280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bichwhwifi/pseuds/Bichwhwifi
Summary: When Felicity Smoak gets asked to spy on the son of her boss at her second job at a restaurant it sets almost everything in motion.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story has been in my head for a really long time and I finally got the chance to write it down. So I hope that you all like it and please leave a comment, I love hearing feedback.

 

## The 5th of February

 

 

It had been a slow day at the restaurant, well at least during her lunch hour shift and the dinner rush would be a whole other story. But Felicity only had the lunch hour shift today so she was done for the day. The only real table she had serving was some random business lunch, so it had been an easy going day so far.

 

"Dig, I'm off. I traded my lunch shift for tomorrow with Tara because they asked me if I could come in tonight and do the night shift." She said when she made her way through the kitchen door dressed in her usual close with her work clothes  in hand.

 

"Hon, you really do not have to come in tomorrow if you have a night shift." Lyla cut in when she stopped Felicity at the door.

 

"Thank you, Lyla but I need the money. The night shifts in QC's IT department pay's well but even with two part-time jobs. I can barely come by."

 

"I still can't believe that they didn't have anything better to offer you at QC."

 

"Well, Walter did say that if there was any job opening suited. I wouldn't even have the job if it wasn't for Walter but he said that I would be one of the first one to be considered for the position. But I have to go now or I'll be late, see you tomorrow and give Sara a kiss for me, will you." She said before she walked out of the restaurant out of the back door to her car and made her way to QC for her night shift.

 

She had gotten the job at QC's It department after Diggle had told Walter that he had someone in serving with an MIT masters degree in cyber security and computer sciences, it was what had gotten her the job in the first place. She was way over qualified for the job but it was the only job that she had gotten even an interview for. It had been hard finding a job in the IT sector but any corporate desk job that she would have taken if Walter hadn't given her the job, it couldn't get worse than the one she had now.

 

Within her first weeks of working at QC under Walter himself, he had taken a liking to her after she had upgraded while QC's system in the spear of a mere day out of pure boredom, something the head of IT was taking more than over a year to do.

 

Is she happened to be working at the restaurant while Walter or Moira came over for lunch or dinners they would always ask Dig if Felicity was working that day? Moira had said that she was lucky someone hard working like Felicity was working for QC.

 

"Hey, Felicity."

 

"Hey, Rob. Anything happened while I was away?" She asked when she walked into the already almost empty IT department.

 

"Nothing shocking happened here but Walter did just come by to asked if I could send you up as soon as I saw you. He wanted to talk to you about something." Rob said while she took off her coat and had t down her handbag. It was rare for Walter to ask her presence on the executive floor, most of the times it was to ask her if she could do fix whatever mess the IT department had made while she had been working at the restaurant.

 

"Okay, I really don't know what for or how long it will take. So don't wait up for me. Go home and have dinner with your girlfriend."

 

"I promise." He said while she made her way back to the elevator that had taken her up to the IT department moments ago only now to take her up eighteen floors to the executive floor. While in the elevator she straightened out her black pencil skirt and made sure her pink blouse was tucked in because Dig's office had been so small that she hadn't had much room to change out of her work uniform.

 

When she reached the executive floor she saw that Walter's EA had already left for the day what lead the floor to be almost completely empty. With the exception of Walter, Henk the janitor and her now of course.

 

"Rob said you wanted to see me, sir?" She said peeking her head around the glass door of Walters office.

 

"Oh, yes. Take a seat, Felicity." He said motioning to the chair in front of his desk.

 

"Moira and I wanted to ask you a favor of you if it was okay with you."

 

"Yeah, what can I do for you?"

 

"Well, it's about Oliver. Moira heard from Thea that his girlfriend, Loreal, is planning to break up with him, anytime soon. Their relationship wasn't exactly a healthy or a good one to say at least and Moira and I think that after the break-up it would be a good timing to get him involved in the family company."

 

"I get that, kind of but I see the point. So what did you want to ask me?"

 

"Thea said that she overheard Laurel talking to some friends that she was planning to dump him during their anniversary dinner. And when Oliver asked Moira moments after Thea told her, he asked her if she knew a nice place for dinner. She so happened to recommend Verdant."

 

"Oh, now I get it. You basically want me to spy on the two of them and tell you everything that happened?"

 

"Not really. Oliver being Oliver got the genius idea of then renting out the whole restaurant for the night. We are asking you if you would want to work that and tell us then everything that had happened during the night. After the last time, they broke up he kind of stopped talking to us after Moira voiced her opinion on his girlfriend, so we just want to know how we have to handle him when he gets back home."

 

"Totally get where you're coming from. I'd do anything that could help QC in the future."

 

"We already talked to Dig about it and he will tell you the rest. I'll let you get back to work." Walter said before getting up from behind his desk and picked up his coat and briefcase before walking Felicity out of his office.

 

“I see the point behind it and out of the experience, I can say that a break up can really change a person. I fit wasn’t for break up, I wouldn’t be here if it weren't for one.” She said when they walked into the elevator without it changing the look on her face. Walter gave her a second look, wondering what had led her to change and lead her to Starling.

 

“A small push in the right direction won’t hurt anyone right?” She asked looking up at a Walter who had been silence for the time the elevator had gone down a few floors.

 

“And Felicity, QC wouldn’t be the same with you,” Walter said when the elevator doors opened at the IT department.

 

“Thank you. Say hi to Moira and Thea for me, can you?”

 

“Of course Felicity. Have a good night.”

 

That night there wasn’t really an eventful night, the only times she actually gets up from behind her desk had been the time’s to either fill up her empty cup of coffee or go to the bathroom after she had drunk too much coffee. At seven when her ‘very eventful’ shift from hell had finally come to an end around the time the office came alive and began to fill with people again just at the point when she was about to go home and get some well-needed sleep.

 

## The 6th of February

 

 

That night Dig had texted her telling her that Queen had indeed come to the restaurant and picked a date for his soon to be dumping anniversary. When she did finally get home she changed into her star wars pj’s almost immediately and texting Digg that she was probably going to be late for her shift that night. She had been probably been too tired to have press the send button on the text before falling asleep.

 

“Felicity speaking?”

 

“Well, at least we now know that you’re still alive after I tried calling you four times before you now finally picked up. If you hadn’t picked up I was going to send Harper over to your place to check up on you.”

 

“well, you don’t need to send Roy over to come and check on me I guess that I just needed my sleep and I’m so sorry for worrying you. In my defense, didn’t I send you a text this morning? It’s the last thing I did before I fell asleep, I swear that I did.”

 

“No, I did not get a text from you this morning, the last evidence of life that I get from you was your text late last night. I just wanted to call you to tell you that you really didn’t have to come tonight. We had a few last minute cancellations, only half the tables are filled but can you come in a bit earlier tomorrow. So we can go over everything we know so far about Queens dinner at the end of next week because it’s the perfect opportunity to clean out the whole restaurant so we can move everything into the new place.”

 

“I will and thank you for the night off. Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow Dig?”

 

“See you tomorrow Felicity,”

 

When she ended the call and got herself out of her way to comfort of her bed, she saw the notifications about the four missed calls Dig had been talking about and stumbled on the text that she thought she had sent to Dig that morning. She saw that it was around half past six when she looked over at the clock that was standing on her bedside table, it had not only meant that she had slept for almost twelve solid hours in a row, almost breaking her record of fourteen but it had also meant that she would have been an hour late for her shift at the restaurant.

 

After having a heated discussion with herself about not having set an alarm and her seriously fucked up sleeping schedule she finally took a shower to only get dressed right after when she found out that she had like zero food in her fridge and she was starving at this point. So the Big Belly Burger around the corner it was for dinner, she didn’t feel like eating in the way to crowded restaurant so dinner to go it was. Once she had eaten dinner she did some work for QC from home, one of the side projects Moira and Walter had asked her to do.

 

It was until now that she didn’t have a clue why they had asked her to make a detailed report of every department within QC. They wanted her to make them for when Oliver would begin working for QC. She had to say, for as long as she had known Moira Queen. If the woman wanted something to happen she made sure it did and went to her plan. It was something that scared her but she also admired that about her.

 

It was two AM when she finally decided to go to bed after all her bottle of Merlot was now empty and she had finished up making the reports. Waking up shortly five hours of sleep later she had just enough time before she had to be at the restaurant for her shift to being able to go for a quick morning run and do some grocery shopping before work.

 

 

## The 14th of February

 

"Welcome, to Verdant Mr. Queen, Miss Lance. Let me get your coats and then I'll lead you to your table." Felicity said when she opened the front door of Verdant for Oliver and Loreal after they got out the car and lead them inside.

 

"Ollie, you shouldn't have!" She heard Loreal say when they walked into the restaurant.

 

Felicity had to say Oliver had gone all out, something she wouldn't have expected from him. He had asked there to only be candles, roses everywhere, campaign waiting for them. Something Felicity had to have to ask Roy to open the bottle because she didn't even come close to even opening the bottle. But everything looked perfect, which made it even sadder that he was going to get dumped within a couple of hours.

 

"Can I get you two anything other to drink?" She asked after they had sat down and had handed them their menu's.

  

"Just a water, for now, please."

 

"A scotch, please," Oliver said after he finally looked up from whatever he had been fumbling in his jacket pocket, from what she had seen it had been a black velvet box and if she had to make a wild guess. It had to be a ring and it only made her wish that she didn't know that someone that had been thinking about proposing to his girlfriend the same day she had been planning on dumping him.

 

"Then I'll be right back with your drink." She said after she pretended that she wrote down their orders on her notepad with her bright red pen but instead she just wrote down the word she came up with for the second round of hangman she was playing with Roy.

 

"It's kind of sad right?" Roy asked her when she walked back into the kitchen and had put down her notepad.

 

"Yeah, it is. And it's even sadder that we were the ones that were asked to spy on them. I would say I get why Moira asked you if you could work tonight, which kind of sucks for Thea but I still don't really get why I'm here."

 

"I don't know either and what the hell of a word did you come up with?" Roy asked just before she walked back out of the kitchen with a bottle of water and a glass of scotch and winked at him.

 

"Have you two decided yet?" She asked after she had put down their drinks.

 

"I'll have and the house salad and the Smoked Duck and a glass of the white wine." Came from Laurel who couldn't look more disapproving at Felicity.

 

"And I'll have the Crab Cakes and the Beef Wellington." Oliver in the other had at least gave her a nod before she made her way back to the kitchen.

 

"Don't you have to write that down?" Laurel asked in her bitch tone.

 

"I think that I can remember your order till I get to the kitchen," Felicity said with the most convincing smile that she could manage and have to hold herself back not to say something more like that she was actually thinking.

 

"Still on track?" Roy asked when she came back into the kitchen and hopped onto one of the counters and picking up the notepad and looking what letters Roy had guessed.

 

"Still on track, I'm impressed that he knew what she would order. And I now know why Thea is sick that her brother is so blind that he is dating a bitch. Not my words, Thea's."

 

"About Thea?"

 

"Of course you can leave early. As soon as you are done with the food so that I don't have to do anything, then you are free to go. Because every food I even try to make something myself go's horribly wrong." That only made the both of them laugh because they both knew that it was true.

 

-=-=-

 

"How was your dinner?" Felicity asked when she had walked back up to the table after she saw that both their plaids were now empty.

 

"It was delicious." Came from Oliver followed by an agreeing nod from Loreal, who still hadn't dropped the bitchy act towards Felicity. Something that was only getting more on her nerves the longer she had to be in her presence.

 

"Would you like your dessert now or in just a moment?"

 

"In a moment would be nice, I'm still stuffed." Laurel said before looking over at Oliver for his approval before Felicity took as much back to the kitchen in one go as she could because des the shorter the time was she had to share the same air as that bitch.

 

"Ollie, I have something really important to tell you." She heard Loreal say moments before she entered the kitchen. Once inside the kitchen she blocked out the sound coming from the front and took a big breath after she had set everything down and looked around the now empty kitchen but the moment of silence didn't last long before she heard yelling coming from the front.

 

"TOMMY, LAUREL HOW COULD YOU!!" She saw Oliver yelling after she had hurried her way out of the kitchen because well, telling his mother how everything had gone down was something she was actually getting paid for to do, so she had a good reason to see what was going down.

 

"Well, Oliver I did. So can you please get out of my way now he's waiting for me outside." She saw Laurel say just before she got her coat and walked past Oliver and made her way out of the restaurant.

 

"I can pretend and say that I didn't saw that one coming but well that would be a horrible, horrible lie." She said under her breath while she made her way over to the table and whisked away the last plaids to the kitchen.

 

"What did you say?" She heard Oliver ask her at the same time he was getting up from his table and following her in the direction of the kitchen, which was kind of scaring her and making her pick up the pace in her step while making her way to the kitchen. Oliver ended up leaning over the serving counter that was connected to the kitchen, staring at her like nothing happened.

 

"If I can ask for a second time. What did you say again back there?" He said a few moments later while still leaning against the serving counter just looking at Felicity who had started on watching the dirty dishes from Queens dumping dinner.

 

"Well, I really don't know how to tell you this but let's just start with the obvious thing, I knew for like more than a week that you were going to get dumped today."

 

"Are you like a physic or something?"

 

"No, not at all, I don't even think that there are even such thing as physics. Your step dad told me that your sister told your mother that she overheard your girlfriend, well then girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend and who told her friends that she was going to break up with you and then your sister told your mom about it, who was the one who told your step-dad. And he was the one who asked if I could work a shift tonight after you took your mothers' bait to have your anniversary dinner here so they asked me if I could, like, tell them who everything went."

 

After she had said that there came a thick silence between the two of them, with now only the sound of the running water running in the background. Felicity didn't know what to do now, a silane Oliver was until now the scariest one she had met. So the rambling began again.

 

"They meant it in a good way, sort of. They just wanted to have someone to look out for you because they told me that you hadn't talked to them after the fight you had with them. It sounds crazy coming from a stranger but you have to believe me. They meant to do good."

 

"Oliver, is it good if I call you Oliver? Please at least say something. You're scaring me."

 

"Please, stop talking or at least slow down a bit. Can you get me a drink? Something stronger than the wine. And I won't mind after I had a couple of drinks." When Oliver said that a huge weight got lifted off her shoulders. He seemed calm and collected, well at least he wasn't mad and yelling at her after she had told him, well blurred out after he had heard her talking to herself.

 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you for not being mad at me and yelling. Follow me, we only have a few bottles of whiskey behind the counter but that's all we have. Because you rented out the whole place they started moving everything to the new place a few days earlier." She started babbling again while walking out of the kitchen and walking front of him and turning to face him mid-sentence and continued to walk backward to the counter and picking up two bottles of whiskey, silently asking if it was fine with him. Getting only a smile that formed on Oliver's' face and a small nod when he sat back down at the table.

 

"I can't really say that I'm not mad at you but I know that you couldn't have done anything to prevent this from happening. But my mom, sister, and Walter are a whole different story, I'm definitely mad at them for not telling me and setting you up to spy for them."

 

"I have to say that I didn't see this as spying. They were just worried about you and they wanted to know how you were doing since you are the one that isn't really talking to his family anymore-" Felicity had said, what got a bit of a look that would be getting close to his angry face. "- Well don't blame me for knowing. I'm just a person that has met and talked with your parent from time to time. So when they asked me if I could do them a favor. Well, I'm not a person that says no when their boss asks that of them." She said while looking for a glass.

 

"Wait, hold up for just a moment. So you work for QC and not at the restaurant?" Oliver said after sitting just a little bit straighter up in his chair. It almost seemed like a backhanded compliment to her work and making her think that he thought that she was some low life assistant but who was she to know what was going on in that air filled head of him.

 

"I do work at QC but I also work here at the restaurant part-time. Next to my job here I also work in QC's IT department. I graduated from MIT in '09, second in my class with a masters degree in cyber security and computer sciences. So what does 'mister I dropped out of four different colleges' to say about that." She said while setting the glass in front of him and taking a seat across from him.

 

"How the hell do you know that?"

 

"If it's on the internet, I can find." She said without even looking at him and opening the bottle and filling up his glass. Oliver just looked at her while a blank expression still on his face which got a small smile forming at the corner of Felicity's mouth when she looked up and handed him his drink.

 

It took a few moments and two glasses of whiskey for Oliver to finally break the silence that had occurred between the two of them and speak up."So let me get this straight one thing at a time.You work here at the restaurant and at the IT department in QC, so how exactly do you know Walter and my mother?"

 

"I started working here at the restaurant after I moved here because there weren't any openings in IT and Walter and your mother come here regularly for dinner and when they overheard Digg talking about how he still didn't get that I couldn't find a better job fit for my qualifications, they offered me a part-time job at QC. I still work here so every time they come here and I'm working they are my regular table."

 

"Oh, I start to get it. Thea told me about that a while ago I thought."

 

That can be the case, her boyfriend Roy works here in the kitchen. He was also specifically asked to work tonight. I let him go early, he told me Thea had thrown a fit about it at home about how her mom was having her boyfriend work on Valentin's day." She has said with a small laugh. and to all her surprise it also got a small laugh from Oliver.

 

 

"He's a good kid. So how did they actually ask you to do something like this?"

 

"Well, I kind of work directly under Walter in the IT department. He asks me to fix up whatever the rest of the department made from time to time or just research, so when he asked me if I could do a favor. I really couldn't say no, he is the reason I got the job in the first place so in mind I owed him from that." Witch got a small nod from Oliver's side.

 

"Oh, I totally forgot. Do you want dessert? It's already plaided and serving ready." She said while getting up from her chair.

 

"Of course, on one condition. Join me." He said looking up at her with his charming signature smile that could make every girl swoon within seconds.

 

"Just got dumped and already hitting on someone else. Well, now I begin to see why she dumped you in the first place."

 

"What makes you say that?"

 

"You went full on Flynn Rider smolder from tangled on me. But I have to tell you, Queen, that trick won't work on me."

 

"I swear, I didn't mean it like that but I did mean it when I asked if you wanted to join me for dessert."

 

"Okay, I'll join in but only because I am really hungry and it's a chocolate souffle." She said giving in when her stomach began to rumble when only thinking about the souffle that was standing in the kitchen.

 

"Want, any campaign with that?" She asked while she made her way back to the kitchen to get their dessert."

 

"Sure, why not but you're joining in as well." She heard Oliver yell back at her when she just entered the kitchen and she just couldn't help but smile at his remark.

 

Oliver had to say that tonight had gone every way but according to plan. In the past, he has seen at least some signs when Loreal was going to break up with him or tell him that it was best for them to go on a break. but not this time. This time around it had been the longest time that they had been together without breaking up or going on a break, he had been thinking about asking her to marry him but now he was glad that he hadn't asked Felicity to put the ring in the champagne glass when serving dessert. He was lucky that he had held it safe in the box that was in one of the pockets in his suit jacket.

 

They had only been back together for about six months but in his defense, he had known her so what his whole life. But if he was going to use that in his defense it also could have been Tommy that could have asked her. At least he just didn't get dumped on valentine's day by his girlfriend, he, in fact, gained one. How could he have not seen it?

 

Out of everyone in Starling, his girlfriend, well now ex, chose to cheat on him with his best friend. Someone he saw as a brother. It could have been one of her dirty tricks to get back at his for cheating on her with her sister in high school but that happened five years ago. If there was one thing he could be happy about was that he at least didn't have to spend valentine's day alone but at least got to spend it with someone.And only just thinking about her made him looked up when he heard her walk out of the kitchen, focused on the plaid in hand. It had felt like it had all been a coincident, that his mother had set her up to be the one that had to deal with a just dumped Oliver, an Oliver that was even more stubborn than the usual Oliver but mixed in with just a dash of denial. And he didn't mind one bit anymore that his mother had known that he was going to get dumped and set up all of this.

 

When she made it back to the table he reached to grab the bottle of champagne from her while she put down the plaid with chocolate souffle and got back in her seat.

 

"To what do we toasted?" Oliver asked after he had opened the bottle and poured the campaign into two glasses.

 

"Hmm, oh I know something. To chocolate souffle." Felicity said with a small smile on her face after a short moment of thinking.

 

"To chocolate souffle it is." He repeated with the same smile on his face while they held up their glasses.

 

"Oh my god, this is so good. Roy was so right about this being the best souffle in Starling." She said after taking a bite of the dessert that was standing in between the two of them.

 

"So didn't you have anything to do on valentine's day? And before you say anything, I'm just trying to make small talk." Oliver asked after they had finished the bottle of campaign and the souffle was no longer in existence.

 

"No, not really. I was planning on either spending it working the night shift in the IT department or just sitting on the couch in pajama's all night and binging on some Netflix while eating a tub of mint chip ice-cream. Or the short answer, no I don't have a boyfriend." Felicity even surprised herself when she blurred out the last part, she was blaming the campaign for that on but the small smile that she got from Oliver was enough to make her forget about it in less than seconds.


End file.
